This is an angry rant. You’ve been forewarned.
My social circle, friends and acquaintances, tend to come from all walks of life. Different backgrounds, attitudes and belief systems. Probably due to my family circumstances and upbringing, I’ve always been used to having all sorts of opposing ideas around me. I feel that life would become terribly dull if I were to be surrounded only by people who agree with me. I learn quite a lot by having discussions, or just listening to, people whose philosophies are partially or entirely against mine. I need to be able to see things from the point of view of the Trump supporter and the anti-vaxxer, because I end up seeing valuable facts in their side of story that I wouldn’t see otherwise. Being used to this practise, means that it’s not easy to piss me off even if I’m listening to an opinion that I personally find outrageous.
But… this has limits. And now, I’m angry. Very, very angry.
One very clear boundary to my patience is when someone’s misguided actions are directly endangering the lives of other people. And it makes me so sad, so sorry and so bitter when I see people I like, people I care about and have respect for, people among my friends and acquaintances, do exactly that. It’s been painful watching some of your opinions and actions on social media. It’s hurtful on a personal level.
I’ve been watching you post pictures and videos of you dismissing the lockdown protocols in different parts of the world. Breaking quarantine. Not giving a f*ck about social distancing. Being proud of finding your way to some nice quiet corder of nature, conveniently failing to mention the public transportation you used to get there. You who are wearing a shirt saying that you’re young and healthy and not afraid of anything. You who are protesting in groups, expressing loudly that the government is taking away your human rights or freedom by telling you to stay at home. How out of touch with the reality are you? Do you realise that facts are still facts even if it’s the government voicing them?
Anti-establishment anarchism, political activism and all these misunderstood labels you’re proudly putting on yourself, have no connection to your selfish, childish, thoughtless actions. Lockdown, social distancing and all the related protocols are not about you or your political opinion. I’m sorry to have to inform you of this, but the Corona virus doesn’t give a sod about your bloody political opinion.
This is about whether your grandmother will have the freedom to visit her doctor without the possibility of dying of Covid 19 constantly looming above her head. This is about whether your colleague with asthma will survive this bloody situation. This is about families having the freedom to visit each other again, families that might currently be stuck, away from each-other, in different parts of the world. This is about establishing regulations that would allow people to go back to their jobs before their lives are completely ruined and the economy of their country is damaged beyond repair. This is about putting a leash on this disaster before it causes even more ruin that it already has. This is a matter of survival. Do you understand that your delusion of fighting for your freedom, is practically taking away everyone else’s? Who gives you the right to destroy the lives and freedom of everyone else? Or do you perhaps think that freedom is a word that only applies to you?
What irks me even more is that you, my dear “rebellious” friends, all happen to live in parts of the world with governments that generally aren’t known as oppressive regimes. You do not have a first clue what it is to live under an actual oppressive regime, take it from someone who has. And this is definitely no time for you to play out your fantasies of political justice heroism. Human rights are constantly shredded to bits around the world and you act like having to stay at home during a pandemic is the thing to go to war for? You’re clearly not interested in the well being of the society, only in your own personal interests. Oh, and the police wouldn’t have to force you to stay at home or respect social distancing if your own sense of logic and responsibility had taken over the task.
Of course if you happen to have any interest in facts, the web is full of legitimate scientific information showing you exactly why you’re expected to follow these pandemic protocols. And if that’s too much effort for you, there’s even a ton of initiatives by people who try to, among other things, explain things as simply as possible so you don’t have to work too hard. Like this page here for instance: staythefuckhome.com
And while you’ve been busy worrying about your “freedom” [to spread the virus?], the world’s been finding out more and more about the effects of this virus, and what it can actually do to the human body. Does any of that happen to interest you by any chance? Here’s just a couple of interesting examples:
COVID-19: also a systemic endotheliitis
SARS‐CoV-2 in COVID-19 patients is likely to infect the brain
Have a look around the web and I’m sure you’ll see a ton more informative articles on the bloody capabilities of this virus, as well as the global statistics of the damage it’s doing. And while you’re at it, please have a look at the charts on this page depicting the correlations between Covid deaths and age / preexisting conditions.
A mortality perspective on COVID-19: Time, location, and age
In China, more than 50 percent of COVID-19 deaths have been people who are over 70 years old even though most COVID-19 cases are being contracted by people below 70. Young people have interpreted this as an indication that they do not need to worry about the virus, while old people are being warned to take extreme caution. It is true that young people have a smaller chance than old people of dying from COVID-19, but they have a smaller chance of dying of almost any other health risk as well. In China, the age at which people died from COVID-19 was very similar to the age at which people died normally (Figure 4). And there are already signs that the age profile of deaths in China may not be the same as the age profile elsewhere, so it is useful for people of all ages to take extreme care.
Putting all of the above together, does it seem to you like your age and level of health is going to make you magically impervious to the effects of the virus? Does it seem like it would be possible to just isolate a “risk group” and let everyone else do as they wish? And even if that would have somehow made sense, do you really want to take away the freedom of every old or ill person permanently and just let the pandemic agony to continue?
So you want to talk about freedom? Here’s the freedom I want. I want the freedom to not be stuck in this miserable situation any longer than I have to. I want the freedom to go back to some semblance of a normal life. These are the freedoms you’re taking away from me, by helping the virus spread. Shame on you.
